Irish Oral History Archive

The Irish Oral History Archive needs your help to extend its collecting work to include the rest of Britain. During the coming twelve months the Archive hopes to recruit and train up to thirty volunteer field collectors. We are looking for people with an interest in Irish culture and with an affinity for the older members of our community. You do not need any prior experience in this type of work. The Archive will provide all the necessary training. The most valuable thing you can bring to the project is your time, local knowledge of the Irish community and enthusiasm.

We will provide professional interview training, technical training on all the necessary interview equipment as well as providing you with the recording and photographic equipment you will need to carry out the interviews. In certain cases the Archive will help you establish a local Archive for your own community.

So if you know of an elderly Irish neighbour, friend or associate; if it’s your mother or father, or grandparents that emigrated here before the 1960s, then this project is for you. This is you chance to make a significant contribution to the story of the Irish in Britain, something that will go down in history as one of the most important projects in the history of Irish people worldwide.

Read more about the project here.

To get involved please contact the Irish Oral History Archive here: EMAIL THE ARCHIVE

The Irish Oral History Archive has been experimenting with various audio players so that it can bring oral history to people via the web.  Have a listen here to a short selection of audio interviews carried out over 10 years ago of Irish people, both at home and abroad, talking about themselves. All audio courtesy of ITMA and IOHA.

The Quiet Men is a new exhibition curated by Brian Whelan and PM Gallery, featuring the work of artists drawing upon their own lives to depict the London-Irish experience. It runs from 11 March-18 April 2009 at PM Gallery, the extension to architect Sir John Soane’s home, Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing, west London.  You can hear Fergal Keane's launch speech below:

The first major contemporary London-Irish art exhibition to explore this subject, The Quiet Men features paintings and etchings by Brian Whelan, Dermot Holland, John Duffin, Bernard Canavan and the late Daniel Carmody. The exhibition premieres at PM Gallery prior to an international tour, which will see The Quiet Men travel to Spain, Philadelphia and Chicago between 2009 and 2011.

Each featured artist is an immigrant, or child of immigrants, from Ireland. This immigrant status informs the work, which observes the margins of society and is full of stories, humour and tragedy. The church and pub appear, as do the launderette, bus and train. The theme of the journey is often present in the songs, toasts, poems and prayers of the immigrant and the artists do not stray far from the vehicles that brought them to the city and might take them away again.

Featured artist and exhibition curator, Brian Whelan, said ‘Irish music, literature, poetry and dance are celebrated all over the world. However, when asked to bring to mind Irish paintings, sculpture or architecture or to name an artist, many will have difficulty as very few have been celebrated outside Ireland. One reason for this may be that a people that experienced famine, war, economic hardship and mass immigration, carried only their portable culture with them in their heads, hearts and suitcases. Poems and songs have few requirements short of a good memory or the ability to carry a tune, whereas painting, sculpture and architecture are less portable and need peace, prosperity and time in order to flourish.’

Exhibition Dates: 11 March-18 April 2009. Admission is free to all visitors
Opening Times: Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm; Saturday 11am-5pm
For further information www.ealing.gov.uk/pmgalleryandhouse, 020 8567 1227

The Irish Oral History Archive conducts the vast majority of its interviews on digital audio and audio-visual formats.  The written word however still plays an important part in its collection.  A number of submissions have been made to the Archive in print.  Some of these are fictional stories based on recollections of Irish people's lives, others are short biographies inspired by the Irish Post's 'Documenting our Decades' column.  Occasionally some are the life narratives of individuals compiled after their passing by members of their own family.

Noel Ryan's life story, 'An Immigrant's Life Story' is one such document.  Noel, pictured on above with Michelle Green, wrote a wonderful account of his life growing up in Co. Waterford.  His recollections were compiled by his family following his passing and donated to the Archive's collection.  These recollections are of vital importance to the work of the IOHA as they record the lives of people who would otherwise go unheard.  In the near future, the Archive hopes to make available selections of these documents as part of the Archive's remit to publicise its work to a wider audience.

The Archive recently interviewed David Creedon on his visit to London to launch his photographic exhibition 'Ghosts of the Faithful Departed'.  Between 2005 and 2007, David photographed many of the abandoned, derelict houses to be found throughout Ireland. Their owners had fled, mainly due to dire poverty during the 1950s, leaving an unmarried family member behind to maintain the property’s upkeep or run the farm. When in turn they passed away, ownership was often passed to far-flung relatives. Now, in a new millennium, these houses lie deserted, awaiting the return of owners whose dreams of coming home may never be realised.

Photographed in available light with a slow shutter speed and at different times of the day, these interiors and the treasures inside, that once formed part of the fixtures and fittings of their owners’ lives, are brought out of the shadows to reveal a part of Irish history that has been left to the ravages of time.

The exhibition runs from 23rd January to the 6th March 2009 in Photofusion Gallery, 17A Electric Lane, Brixton, SW9 8LA.  A catalogue of the exhibit is available.  More details can be found at www.photofusion.org

Images copyright David Creedon.  www.davidcreedon.com

On the 15th January 2009 Sean Moncrieffe from Newstalk 106-108FM interviewed Glenn Cumiskey, the IOHA Director, about the work of the Irish Oral History Archive. Newstalk is a nationwide current affairs and news channel with the Moncrieff show featuring a lively mix of phone-ins, text messages and stories from around the world. The programme features all types of news stories ranging from serious to the zany.

You can listen to this interview by following this link...

The Irish Post has been running a weekly column drawn from the 'Irish Emigrants in Britain' collection of the Irish Oral History Archive.  The column is titled 'Documenting our Decades' and features excerpts of speech from interviewees about everything from emigration to work on the farm in pre-1940s Ireland.

The IOHA would like to extend its thanks to the Irish Post for its support in publicising the work of the Archive in Britain.

The Irish Times recently published an article on the work of the IOHA, featuring an interview with Michael Hopkins, one of the contributers to the 'Irish Emigrants in Britain' collection.

The full tect of the article can be found by following this link...

In 2008, on the recommendation of the Irish Government's Emigrant Services Advisory Committee, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Micheal Martin T.D., approved grant funding to establish and carry out the collecting project Irish Emigrants in Britain.

"We face a critical choice in the coming years. As those who emigrated in their thousands from Ireland in earlier decades become older, will we be content to let their legacy be one of nostalgic rememberance of a heroic generation, or will we grasp the opportunity that their achievements offer us? I firmly believe that we in Ireland and our communities in Britain and elsewhere have a unique chance to come together, to avail of new global opportunities and technologies and to forge a partnership of which those who went before would be proud".